Feel Bad
by JoeMerl
Summary: After beating the Planeteers and destroying a forest filled with endangered species, does Looten Plunder have any regrets? A short walk down Memory Lane may help to put things in perspective. One-shot, birthday fic for Plunderer01. Rated for language.


**Author's Notes:** This is a birthday present for **Plunderer01,** Looten Plunder's biggest (and probably only) fangirl ever. This is set shortly after the episode "Who Gives a Hoot?" (aka, the only episode where an Ecovillain _actually wins_), although with flashback scenes that I totally made up because as far as I know Looten Plunder has no actual back story. I hope everyone (but especially the birthday girl) enjoys!

* * *

Looten Plunder chuckled, watching as one of his bulldozers crushed yet another tree trunk under its tracks.

"Ah. Victory," he sighed, stroking the ivory knob of his walking stick as he strolled through the forest of mangled trees. It felt nice, finally being able to _win_ once again. He so rarely got the chance to enjoy any of his big projects these days---thanks to those meddling Planet-pests and their freakish little superhero pet, Captain Planet, all he had managed to do lately was waste literally _millions_ of dollars on operations just for a gang of ragtag teenagers to ruin. It was embarrassing, really, and all the more so because until now he had been unable to figure out how to stop them---for all the vast resources he controlled he normally could find no recourse against them, at least without threatening to expose some rather..._awkward_ information about his company's projects to the authorities.

"Hmm. How ironic," Plunder mused, coming to a stop at a tree stump and tapping it softly with the toe of his leather Armani shoe. "So much money wasted on illegal operations, and it's by working _inside_ the law that I finally managed to get something done. It's nice to know that money still has influence _some_where these days..."

He suddenly scowled, his mind drifting back to that _judge_ and what she had said about his work. "But not as much as it should," he grumbled, kicking the trunk again more harshly. Damn environmental whack-jobs. What gall that woman had, siding with a group of foreign Communist _teenagers_ over a respected businessman like him. What had _they_ ever done to deserve a say in anything? Flown around in some sort of souped-up magical plane telling _smarter_ people how to do their jobs? It made his blood boil. Here he was a self-made billionaire, a corporate genius, a man who had built himself up from near-poverty to the tiers of greatest wealth and high society, and _still_ he had to prove himself to those ecological simpletons!

Nothing had changed in the last twenty years, he thought.

Then he smirked, his eyes drifting up to the cleanly-sawed tree trunk in front of him.

Well, not quite. _He_ had the power now, and no matter how much those loonies _tried_ to stop him, this had still turned out a victory for him. Even Captain Planet couldn't compete with some kinds of power.

A shadow fell over Plunder's shoulder. He quirked an eyebrow and slowly turned, recognizing the man's shape before seeing his face.

"Ah, the Planeteers' little friend," he sneered, taking in the lumberjack who had been helping those little pests in their case. "Still here, are you, haunting me like a ghost, hmm? Dead as your case?"

The lumberjack snarled, glaring at Plunder with all the hate of a man who is absolutely _powerless_ against his opponent. It was the sort of look Plunder had seen in his mirror when the name "Captain Planet" was mentioned. "The Planeteers are still working to stop you, you know," the man said. "They have proof of what you did, pretty soon you'll be---"

"_Finished?_" Plunderer suggested mockingly, causing the lumberjack to blink in surprise. "Why yes, I will. Finished chopping down every last damn tree in this forest, with nothing that you or your little brats can do to stop me."

The other man grimaced. "You can't do this!"

Plunder chuckled. "Oh, I think I've proven that I _can,_" he said, waving his arm to the cleared plain and the logging crews working a mere hundred feet away. "It's _amazing_ what you can do when you have the proper influence."

"You only got that influence by lying and cheating!" the lumberjack growled, getting within inches of Plunder and jabbing him in the chest. "It ain't right!"

Plunder snarled, slapping the man's hard away as he turned on his heel. "'Right?'" he mocked, walking coldly away. "I hardly see what that has to do with anything. Legal matters are not decided by 'right,' you know.

"That's something I've learned from experience," he added, glaring down at the tree stumps as he passed.

* * *

_"This isn't right, this isn't right I tell you..."_

_Eleven-year-old Looten peered over the top of his book, eyes darting over to the kitchen threshold through which he saw his mother pacing back and forth, massaging her forehead. His father remained slumped forward in his chair, elbow on the table and head in his hand, looking worn and defeated._

_"Well, that's the way it is, Martha," he mumbled, throwing up his hand. "There's nothing else I can do, we just---lost."_

_"But it isn't _right!_"_

_She stopped pacing and fell into the other chair, imitating her husband's slump. Looten quietly set down his book and approached the doorway, staying to the side so as to remain out of sight._

_"They can't just do this, Carl. We _bought_ that land, hell we spent just about every damn cent we had on that place! They can't just---"_

_"I _know that _Martha, but I just---!" Looten's father stopped in mid-sentence, then let out a long sigh to calm himself. "There's nothing I can do. These damn---environmental hippie weirdoes, they've got a court order saying we can't build a thing there. The judge won't back down, at least not unless Greg and I are willing to take this farther than we've got the money for."_

_"But it just---"_

_"Mom? Dad?"_

_The two adults looked up, startled to see their son in the doorway. He was frowning, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked from one to the other. It was a shrewd and suspicious look, almost paranoid._

_"What's going on?"_

_"It's---nothing, Looten," Martha sighed, massaging her forehead once again. "Go do your homework up in your room, would you, please?"_

_She didn't really expect him to give up that easily, and as usual she was not disappointed. "What's going on?" he repeated, sounding only more irritated that they were trying to shake him off. "Is something wrong with grandpa's company?"_

_"It---yes," his mother said, silently wondering why she had to have a child who was quite _this _astute; sometimes she felt like she was raising an adult, and a rather difficult one at that. "Your dad and Uncle Greg have just hit a snag, that's all."_

_Carl Plunder gave a joyless laugh. "It's shot to hell, that's a snag alright. I need a drink," he mumbled, rising heavily to his feet._

_"What do you mean? What's wrong with the land we bought?"_

_"There's nothing---"_

_"What's wrong with the land," Looten's father said, speaking loudly over his mother as he popped the cap off of his beer bottle, "is that it's got some sort of damn endangered flower on it or---something." He took a long sip of his drink and then took a moment swishing it in his mouth, which Looten had learned was kind of a nervous gesture of his. "And now some environmental nut jobs have got a judge to say we can't build anything on it."_

_"But it's _our_ land," Looten said simply, echoing his mother. "You and Uncle Greg bought it, didn't you?"_

_"Yup. With just about all of your grandpa's inheritance, too," he grumbled, plopping back into his seat._

"_What do you mean?" _

"_We used practically all of the company cash, Looten!" his father said bitterly. "Spent it all on a big ol' tract of woods we can never clear, now. And it's not like we can find a new buyer, no one's gonna want to…" He trailed off, taking another morose sip of his drink._

_Martha put her hand over his. "But they have to give is _something, _right? It's not like they can just…"_

"_Oh, the government'll give us some sort of stipend or something, but__**—**__not nearly as much as we could've made, setting up some decent houses and selling the place off."_

"_But then what about the company?"_

_Both parents looked up, broken out of their private conversation. Martha smiled weakly. "Don't you go worrying about that, Looten. Your father will find another job. Why, something like this might even be an opportunity to…"_

"_But what about the _company?_" Looten repeated, his voice rising again. "How will it get by without any money?"_

"_Looten…the company's over," his father said, exchanging a short look with his wife before turning back to him. "Your uncle and I talked, and we just__**—**__"_

"_No!"_

_The boy suddenly kicked the table leg; both his parents jumped along with the table. "_Looten!_" his mother cried indignantly._

"_But Grandpa started that company! You can't close it down! Why don't they just take all those stupid plants and move them somewhere else?!"_

_"It doesn't work that way, son."_

_"Well that's just---_stupid!_"_

_Looten threw up his hands and stormed out of the room. His mother sighed as she and Carl looked at each other._

_"He's always so emotional..."_

_Carl merely grunted and took another sip from his beer._

* * *

_Looten parked his bike at the edge of the woods, grimacing as he looked up at the line of trees in front of him. He never liked it out here. All the other kids in the neighborhood liked to go and play in there, but for his part Looten much preferred staying inside with a good book to read. He _had_ started to like this place better since his father bought it, though...he had been coming down here more often, lately, if only to smirk as he reminded the other children that they were playing on _his_ land now, and threaten to kick them all off if they didn't play the way he wanted. It was usually at least half-effective; the large _PROPERTY OF PLUNDER AND SONS REALTY _sign probably helped emphasize his point._

_"Plunder and Sons." His grandfather had been the Plunder; now his dad and uncle had to share that title, but since Uncle Greg didn't have any kids, Looten's father had told him that now he was the official Son. Looten had felt inexplicably proud about that; it didn't make sense, really, he hadn't_ done _anything, but somehow he just loved that he had some sort of symbolic part of this thing, that he was the second-hand owner of this big forest that would soon be a big neighborhood or whatever the grown-ups decided to make. And that one day he might get the whole company, building on it the same way the other Plunder men had done before him._

_The sign was still there, Looten noted. They still did own this land._

_Even if they couldn't do anything with it._

_"It's still ours," Looten grumbled. And then, without quite knowing what he was doing, he dropped his bike on the ground and walked through the trees, kicking the straggly shrubs out of his way as he went._

_It took about two minutes for Looten to remember why he didn't like coming there in the first place._

_"_Ugh. _Stupid trees!" he snapped, ripping away some stray branches that had gotten tangled in his hair. "This place would be _better_ as a housing division, damn it! Why would anyone---"_

_Just then he heard voices. Looten froze, cocking his head slightly and straining to hear._

"…_ah, here's another clump over here."_

"_Ah, wonderful!"_

_Looten moved aside a bush. A small group of adults**—**he couldn't tell quite how many, about four or five**—**were crouched down near the edge of a nearby clearing, apparently examining the roots of a tree. It was only when one of them shuffled to the side that Looten saw what they were really looking at---a scraggly plant growing next to the tree, sporting a few small and dilapidated flowers. Looten made a face, recognizing that particular species; nobody else he knew ever had any problem with it, but Looten could never even graze it with his bare skin without breaking out in a painfully itchy rash._

"_Well now this is _very_ good news," one of the men was saying, climbing to his feet and dusting off the knees of his pants; he seemed older than the others, a forty-year-old with a group barely out of their teens. "This is a very rare species, you know."_

"_So you're sure this is it?"_

"_Just about positive. With this much of it in the forest you shouldn't have any trouble getting this land under protected status."_

"_Great!"_

_Looten's eyes widened, a slight strangling noise escaping from his throat; almost instantly his hands balled into fists at his side, his face twisting into a look of frank and utter disdain._

"_So when do you think you can have that report done, Professor Leonard?" asked what seemed to be the only girl in the group._

"_Well, it will probably take me a couple of days to get to it, but if you need any help with your case before that then you can just**—**_agh!_"_

"_Hey!"_

_Each of the environmentalists jumped as Professor Leonard and one of the others suddenly got hit with balls of moist soil, apparently out of nowhere**—**it was a few seconds before one of them shouted and pointed at Looten, who was standing as tall as he could a few feet away, snarling, not even making an attempt to hide the handfuls of dirt in his hands._

"_Did he throw that?"_

"_Hey, what the heck you think you're doing, kid?!" _

"_Get out of here!" Looten snapped, fingers curling tighter around the missiles in his hand. "You don't have any right to be here!"_

"_And you don't have the right to be lobbing dirt-bombs at anyone, you little brat!" said the second man he had hit, glaring up at Looten from his ruined white shirt._

_Most eleven-year-olds armed with nothing but mud would have been intimidated in an argument with five adults; Looten, however, had never had quite that much sense, especially when he was both made and _sure_ he was right._

"_You're trespassing! This is Plunder family property, and _you're_ not welcome on _our_ land, you damn---environmental nut-jobs!" he said, stammering for just a moment as he tried to remember what his father had called them._

_One of the men scoffed. "Wow, little boy, you kiss your mama with that mou---_agh!_"_

_Another glob of dirt flew, this one hitting him right in the face. The girl jumped back as Looten let loose another just for good measure._

"_Do you even feel bad?!" he screamed, waving his dirty hands, and all of the environmentalists seemed taken aback by the nearly hysterical rage emanating from this child. "Do you even feel bad about all this, what you're doing to my family, huh?!"_

"_What's the little psycho talking about?"_

"_I don't know, let's just get out of here."_

"_No, I'm gonna teach that little punk**—**"_

"_Let go of it, Jesse, we got the pictures we needed anyway**—**"_

_The older professor looked bewildered and the others scandalized as they took off into the trees again, glaring back at Looten and walking faster than they probably would have liked to admit. He just watched them go, seething._

_For a moment Looten debated if he should follow, yell at them some more, get more mud**—**not that that would do any good, the more rational part of his brain thought through his fog of anger, they still had all the power here, all the control, destroying his family's dreams for some stupid little itchy plant**—**after a moment Looten closed his eyes, feeling like he was spinning, grinding his teeth, wanting nothing more than some way to regain control, to make those little weirdoes _pay_ for what they were doing to the Plunder family name**—**_

_Looten suddenly burst into the clearing, crossed over to where they had been congregated and, without a single concern for the itchy blisters he knew he would get within a day's time, reached down and pulled the stupid little flowers out by the roots, throwing them to the ground and kicking the tangled mess away. With a strangled cry he spun around and marched back towards his bicycle, vowing to come back every day until he had deracinated every damned one of those plants that _his_ forest contained._

* * *

Plunder continued walking among the snowy tree stumps, his mind on that other forest, thoughtful as he surveyed his newest work. His family had never gotten to use that land, he mused**—**at least, not in the way they intended. Eventually his father _had _managed to sell it, at a huge loss of course, but gaining enough extra savings to help send his son to business school. A bit of irony in that, Plunder thought…but still, it was one of his biggest regrets that _those _old woods back home were still standing, despite several efforts he had made to acquire the old land back. Not like _this_ forest…

The Planeteer's lumberjack was still following him. Plunder sighed, trying to ignore him.

"Do you know how many species you've affected, Plunder? Spotted owls**—**black bears—the people whose jobs you're taking---"

Plunder rolled his eyes and kept walking; the lumberjack froze in his tracks, staring after him and his insouciant demeanor.

"Do you even feel bad?!" he demanded suddenly, throwing up his hands. "Do you even feel bad about this, all the people and animals whose lives you're screwing up?!

He nearly jumped as Looten Plunder started to laugh, loudly, as he finally turned around to face him.

"Mwa-ha**—**you're _joking,_ right?" Plunder mocked. The other man simply stared, dumbfounded, and Plunder chuckled to himself again, turning around and walking away through the delightfully barren land that _his_ forest contained.

* * *

**A/N: **...Even characterized this way, it feels weird to want to sympathize with "the Plunder family," doesn't it? XD Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, especially you, Plunderer! And to everyone, please review! :-D


End file.
